Saturday, August 27, 2011

Gaddafi gone; Assad faces the same fate; Khamenei has panicked

Before the Friday Sermon in Tehran last week, President Ahmadi Nejad has addressed the prayers. In his speech, he has questioned the Holocaust, again, and threatened Israel. While his appearance in the sermon and the threats made against Israel should be examined in the context of the political developments in Libya and Syria, it still has its old link to the 2002-2003 invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq.

Tehran has been using the rhetoric since 2005. At the time the Islamic Republic seriously believed that, after Mola Omar and Saddam, it is the next US' target. It appeared that they needed a deterrent against any possible future aggression. Particularly when their friendly gesture by the former president Khatami had been dropped on the deaf ears of the then US President George W. Bush and Dick Cheney whom rather aggressively rejected the gesture. Since then whenever pressures on Tehran increase, whether it be political, nuclear or military; President Ahmadi Nejad repeats the threats. The over usage of these threats, however, somehow turn them into an empty rhetoric. What makes the rhetoric more ridiculous today is the fact that Bashar Al Assad, Tehran's strategic partner in the region, is awaiting his fate to be handed down by the Syrian people. It is pretty clear, from the daily news coming out of the country, that now that Gaddafi has departed, Assad is in the departure lounge waiting! One can only hope that Tehran familiarises itself with these realities sooner than later.

However, if Tehran still insists that spending billions of dollars of Iran's money on the Middle Eastern terrorist organisations such as Lebanese Hezbollah or Palestinian Hamas or country such as Syria is their insurance policy against their human and democratic liabilities owed to the people of Iran; they are fatally mistaken. By Assad's departure, when it comes, Tehran would face the people of Iran and their democratic demands. Regime in Tehran would then neither be in a position to dictate its terms to its own people nor to the outside world.

Finally the only message one can relay to Tehran is that: instead of shouting threats, it would be wiser to simply acknowledge the new reality of the Middle East; a Dictator-Free Middle East. The new Middle East would not entertain dictators, and it would be embarrassingly naive to think otherwise. Millions of new generation Iranians have already handed down their verdict on the legitimacy of the regime in Tehran. Hence Tehran, take the Iran's political system into the operating room and get on with the well-over-due critical surgeries! Otherwise it would be a costly exercise to make you realize the new order.

Notwithstanding of the foregoing Tehran's shouting is not a bad thing in itself after all. It tells us that; they are worry.